It doesn’t seem to matter where I stand on the platform, I always seem to be one of the last on the train. Fortunately I got lucky yesterday, choosing the right hand turn once I was in the carriage vestibule. I plopped down on the first available seat, said an unwelcome good morning to the guy by the window and watched the idiots who went left filter back down the train looking for scraps.
The tap and die sets, which I need to refit the clutch lever, are described on the net up in a language I don’t understand. I don’t know how the sizes work, or if I need to drill the hole smooth before I start out. In the old days I would pocket the bolt and run down to my local everything you’d ever need store and ask a guy with 30 years experience, marvel (hopefully) at his tidy mind and efficient data retrieval system and come back with a plan.
Unfortunately, it’s too specialised a tool for the likes of a generic hardware chain (the type that sells batteries in threes or sixes when you only ever want twos or fours) or the one, small, just about surviving hardware store in town.
On top of it all, Pete is in Cape Town, so I’m temporarily stuck without expert advice. Bugger. But then as much as I love old Pete, he'd probably go at it with rusty nail and inscribe a thread that will just about do. Call me ungrateful but I'd quite like a lesson in cutting threads to suit - teach a man to fish and all that.
All I've currently got to go on is the experience of a wrinkled nut called Sheldon Brown, with a forked beard and a plastic angel glued to his bicycle helmet. This lunatic has written a piece on tapping threads which originally appeared in a 1983 edition of Bicycling magazine and it's internet gold. It's comprehensive and most importantly, comprehensible, which is surprising considering his outlandish appearence. I've printed it off in anticipation of securing the necessary tools this weekend.
